December 20-27

Merry Christmas! Christ is born!

We did not go to Sidney last weekend as originally planned because of covid complications. No one we know has it, but they're working with people who are exposed so... We've rescheduled for January. This left us with several unplanned for days at home (and Bryan was off work). It was quite calm and lovely.

We had lots of church on Thursday and Friday. Royal hours at the Orthodox church on Thursday afternoon. Mass at the Catholic church on Thursday evening (not midnight, though, because they offer a 7:00 that is much better for our kids). Liturgy at the Orthodox church on Friday morning. And then, finally, presents. The kids did great. Except Theodore.

An amendment to my observation that Theodore needs to be held all the time: This does not apply in church. In church Theodore would prefer to be down and running around.

Theodore has a word for when he's excited to see a parent: "Dada!" He has another word for when he's whining or yelling at a parent: "Mom!" Both words are used for both parents, depending on his mood.

When the kids grow up with no sense of time, it's because I say "You have twenty minutes" and then forget to come back for an hour.

I make ginger beer now. Will graciously walked me through the steps for my first batch and now I'm comfortable enough with it to feel relatively confident in my abilities. It's good enough to drink straight but also works well as a mixer. I did try to branch out one time into something of a mulled ginger beer, but that was a failure. I'm back to good old reliable plain and perfectly happy about it.

Two thirds of Theodore's Christmas presents are squeezy pouches. We're a little worried that he'll start raiding under the tree whenever he needs a snack.

Josef and Angelina arrived on Christmas afternoon and stayed for the weekend. Then Josef went back home today to work for a week and Angelina decided to stay and party with us. The Bossards arrive tomorrow sometime.

Pictures:

November 15-December 20

Features that will exist on Gretchen’s ideal house when she’s ready to buy one:

A star
A porch
A chimney
Stairs
A fancy front door

Just before Bryan and I left for our anniversary trip, Kaitlyn cut her hair. She was trying to get rid of her bangs and regretted it immediately. Unfortunately for her, she'd cut off rather a large amount. She resolved to not go anywhere where she might have to see someone. Since keeping her hands over her hairline for the next six months was not a viable option, I suggested that we invest in some stretchy headbands. She has, over the past few weeks, come around to the idea and embraced the headbands. I am hopeful that they'll keep her growing bangs out of her face long enough to avoid another haircut.

Theodore needs more adult attention than our other babies. Actually, it probably just seems like he needs more attention because he has to fight so many other people to get it. Regardless, he often wants nothing more than to be held by whichever adult is willing while life carries on around him. The fastest way to become Theodore’s best friend is to never put him down.

Kaitlyn has mastered short vowel sounds and is now in the second set of readers working on long vowels. She's picking things up quickly and doing very well, but she still despises the suggestion that she should maybe read today. I half remember Gretchen going through these growing pains as well, so I guess we'll see when it gets easy enough for her to be excited about reading.

I took the younger kids to the zoo one beautiful day in early November. Kaitlyn insisted on wearing her bunny ears. This turned out to be a fabulous decision, because the river otters were quite interested in playing with the ears. Of course, they couldn't get the ears through the glass, but that didn't stop them from trying repeatedly.

Gretchen might be a procrastinator. She is constantly distracted from the task at hand, but she had a book report due on Tuesday and after all the other kids went to bed she finally buckled down and finished it. She required no nagging or assistance, and her finished product was beautiful. On second thought, maybe she’s just a hermit.

Olivia got to play a piano piece for the Ribbon Festival, which is a series of little recitals put together by the local chapter of the Music Teachers National Association. Since she’s only been playing for a few months, her teacher gave her a melody to learn and then played a harmony with her.

Thanksgiving saw the Bossards, Jillian, and the JA Fentons visiting us for most of a week. We were supposed to meet Austin, but he had to cancel his trip due to covid. :( The week was as calm as it can be with 17 people sharing a house. The weather was beautiful and the kids quite a bit of time outside.

We had a surprise visit from Tom last weekend. He dropped in on his way from Valpo to Cleveland and managed to catch Zach's visit at the same time. Matthias and Theodore greatly appreciated borrowing Gwen and Silas's grandpa for a weekend.

The night before Thanksgiving, Gretchen came out of her room while the adults were playing games. “Mom, I can’t sleep in my bed because of the feathers.” “...What feathers?” “From the hole in my pillow.” “Did you help the feathers escape?” Gretchen nods. “Did you help the hole exist?” Gretchen nods again. “Bring me your pillow.” Her once stuffed pillow is now only half full, and a four inch gash can be seen in one corner. I send her back to bed and sew up the pillow. When it’s finished, I go into her room to give it back, but not before securing it inside three pillowcases. The carpet by the door is barely visible beneath a pile of feathers. “Here, Gretch,” I say, tossing the pillow on the bed. “Go to sleep.” Pooof. A small explosion of feathers erupts from the bed. “I’m on the floor, mom. There are too many feathers up there and they keep poking me.” I snag the pillow and toss it across the room towards her. Pooof. A feather geyser appears as the pillow sails overhead, ruffling feathers in its wake. I set her up in a sleeping bag in the corner on the room furthest from the feathers and promise to survey the damage in the morning. Thanksgiving morning dawns and, after breakfast and a quick survey of what needs to be done before lunch, Gretchen and I return to the scene of the crime, vacuum in tow. The feather spread is impressive. “Why, Gretchen?” “I just love feathers. Can we maybe keep some?” Request denied. I decide to empty the vacuum canister before we begin. We vacuum feathers out of two full plastic shoe boxes. Gretchen tells me that she and Kaitlyn collected them as they fell the night before so that they wouldn’t bother Edward and Walter, who were sleeping below the beds. We vacuum the floor in front of the door. I leave Gretchen in Angelina’s capable hands and together they vacuum under the beds. Then Angelina notices the feathers on top of Gretchen’s bed. I return, and together we shake feathers off of everything and hide the clean things in the closet. We strip Gretchen’s bed completely and Kaitlyn’s halfway. The floor looks like we haven’t even started. After a second run over everything with the vacuum, the feathers are nearly vanquished. Eventually, we declared it good enough. We emptied the canister 6 times over the course of that morning. Our backyard looked like we’d plucked an entire flock of turkeys for the Thanksgiving feast. Even as I write this, there are still pockets of resistance, hiding among toys and nestled in corners, reminding us of what happens when you love feathers too much.

Pictures:

Bonus Post: Sound Bites 55

Matthias: I am a dinosaur with lion moves and fire in my mouth.

Jillian: Hi!
Olivia: What? Oh, hi!
Gretchen: Aunt Jillian, I thought you were my dad!

Kaitlyn: Wait, why am I the one who has to go get all the supplies?

Angelina: Well, you live here, so we're asking you where things are.

Kaitlyn: But why can't Gretchen go?

Gretchen: I'm too artful for that.

*car brakes suddenly*

Me: Who lost their stuff?

Gretchen: Matthias.

Me: What did you lose, Matthias?

Matthias: I losed everything.

Gretchen: If I convince everyone in Pennsylvania to leave and then I move monsters in, it could be Transylvania!

Matthias: Are we in California?

Me: No.

Matthias: Are we in October?

Me: No.

Matthias: Are we in Sunday?

Me: No. It's a Tuesday in September in Ohio.

Olivia: We're there already? You said it would be 8:30. So your estimate was wrong?

Me: Yes, we got here earlier.

Olivia: Yeah, you were way off.

Gretchen: Are you a mom?

Angelina: Do I have any kids?

Gretchen: No. But you live in your own house.

Angelina: Where should I live?

Gretchen: With your mom!

Gretchen, in front of her godfather while about to receive communion: Wait, MOM! Am I Orthodox?

How Kaitlyn doctored a stuffed dragon back to health:

First I broke his body. Then I took all the fire out and threw it in the garbage. Then I closed him and poked some nails in. Then they dried and now he's all better. Well, he's still a little bit dead. I don't think I was supposed to use nails, but I'm still learning. That's why I'm a little girl.

Bonus Post: Recent Pictures

Pictures:

November 1-15

Words since the end of September. Pictures to follow.

Brad and Shantelle came to visit at the end of September. They worked in the basement during the day and we were able to play games and visit in the evenings. Shortly after they left, Jacque and Julian came to visit for a few days. Julian has seen quite a bit of us over the past few months and doesn’t take long to warm up to his cousins anymore.

We’ve also seen a lot of Josef and Angelina since they moved to Columbus. We spent the first weekend of October visiting them at their apartment. We squeezed four kids into the guest/workout/office room and let Theodore sleep in with Josef and Angelina. Then Bryan and I slept in the living room and I went to fetch Theodore when he woke up. It was a fun visit, but quite crowded. A lot of Saturday was spent at a couple of local parks just to get the kids out of the apartment. More recently, Josef and Angelina came to our house and Josef helped me paint the playroom. We did a Jackson Pollack light splatter wall which turned out quite well.

Bryan has started throwing a yearly Halloween party and this year was the second year. He has candy/prize stations around the yard and basement and sets the kids loose to find all the treasures. A highlight is the basement path where they can collect pennies to spend at the clubhouse store. The party gives Bryan an excuse to decorate and lets our kids get their Halloween fix without the hassle of trick or treating. Or in addition to trick or treating. Double Halloween is a big hit.

I took the kids and went to visit the Bossards over a long weekend. Coincidentally, we managed to hit their trick or treating weekend (it worked out that way last year as well), so our kids did get double Halloween after all, despite missing the Lima night. Trick or treating in the Bossards’ neighborhood has both times been more pleasant than our route we usually end up taking in Lima, so perhaps we’ll just have to plan to be there every year. The kids enjoyed playing together and it was a pleasant visit.

In mid October I had my yearly vacation with my friends. We were supposed to go to Chicago this year, but coronavirus made that impractical. We went to Mansfield, OH, instead, and visited Mohican State Park. On Sunday we were able to attend liturgy at the nearby monastery. Then we stopped for lunch at a local restaurant that served an amazing giant Bavarian pretzel. We decided to hike out to see a “low flow” waterfall and arrived at an 80 foot dripping faucet. The hike was nice, but the waterfall was not much of a payout. :)

Bryan and I celebrated 10 years of marriage in September. We delayed our trip for a couple of reasons and, having divvied our kids up among various households, set out for ...Toledo on October 21. We were planning to go to Niagara (the American side) since that’s where we took our honeymoon, but Ohio got put on New York’s travel ban list a week earlier. When I called, the hotel said it had a one week grace period, but if we were still on the list on October 20 then they would cancel our reservation. We were and they did and we threw together new plans the night before we were supposed to leave. Luckily, hotel rooms aren’t too hard to come by midweek, so we didn’t have much trouble once we decided where to go. We had a lovely time in Toledo, visiting both the zoo and the casino twice. Bryan won at craps and then we lost all his winnings at roulette, but we had a good time doing it. I even won once which let us keep playing a little longer. :) After a few days in Toledo we came home and enjoyed our quiet house for three days before retrieving our children. 

Theodore walks. He’s been playing around with the idea for months now, but he didn’t really take off until about a week after 14 months. If I’m remembering correctly, that puts him at about the same age as Olivia, and a hair younger than Gretchen. He now chooses to walk everywhere all the time and is steady enough that he only sticks his left arm up for balance sometimes. I write so infrequently these days years that I can’t remember what I’ve mentioned and what I haven’t. Theodore has been sleeping relatively reliably through the night since before he turned one. He has the occasional rough night, and he has a tendency to wake up with my alarm in the morning and not go back to sleep. We finally bit the bullet and moved him from the oratory to the room he’s supposed to be sharing with Matthias. After a rough few nights, he has settled in well. He is still likely to wake up around the time my alarm goes off, but I can usually nurse him and put him back down so that he can get a little more sleep and I can start my day without him immediately underfoot.

Kaitlyn has been practicing her cartwheel and is good enough now to do one pretty much anywhere. It’s a common occurrence for her to be walking through the house or yard and decide to throw a cartwheel in just to mix things up. She’s been working on reading and writing with me. Progress through the first set of readers is always agonizingly slow and I have to fight her for every page. When she decides to read, though, she does great, and I’ve assured her that the books will go faster with practice. Her writing is also improving. She’s through all the letters and has moved on to copywork. I’m trying to monitor her writing a little more than I did her sisters’ since I’ve noticed that Olivia’s handwriting slants funny because she doesn’t angle her paper and Gretchen makes all her letters from the bottom up. Clearly I let them down in the handwriting department.

Gymnastics continues to be popular in our house. All three girls are in the same Thursday evening class, which has been quite nice logistically. We have a tumbling mat in our living room now that they can pull out to practice cartwheels and handstands. Kaitlyn has the cleanest, most confident flips, but Olivia and Gretchen have improved noticeably in the past month. We got all three of them sweatsuits to wear over their gymnastics clothes and they think they’re so cool. :) Sometimes both boys stay with Bryan while I take the girls to class, and sometimes one or both of them comes with me and we check out the local park. Matthias knows that gymnastics day is the day he gets to go to the park with mom, so he often does his best to come along. He’s going to be out of luck for a while now since it’s pretty cold and dark by 6:00 these days.

Kaitlyn and Matthias have started Catechesis of the Good Shepherd. This year we have both the youngest and the oldest in the program. Matthias slipped in a couple of weeks before the deadline and Kaitlyn stayed in on a technicality -- she’s not enrolled in kindergarten anywhere. Kaitlyn took this once a week class last year and loved it. Matthias is enjoying it now, as well, although he does wish he could do the work available to the older kids.

November has been very mild thus far. Actually, it’s been downright summery. The little kids and I took of a 75 degree Monday to visit the zoo while the animals were likely to be out. The highlight of the trip was the river otters. Otters tend to be friendly and exciting anyway, but this time they were especially interested in Kaitlyn. Or rather, they were especially interested in the bright pink bunny ears Kaitlyn was wearing on her head. They kept coming right up to her at the window and then jumping up and swatting at her ears.

I finally managed to get in to see a neurologist about my headaches. They’re mild right now, so it feels a little silly to be having appointments while I’m not really bothered, but the past three years have taught me that they will return. I’m supposed to get an MRI in the coming weeks to make sure that there’s nothing alarming going on inside my head and then we’ll talk treatment. They said more options will be available to me once Theodore weans, which is to be expected.

The end of this week saw our kids in Sidney while Bryan and I drove up to Cleveland to visit Brad and Shantelle. They had a Friendsgiving that we attended as the resident old fogeys. Saturday was dinner and video games and then this morning we went to church early and then made breakfast before everyone else woke up. We had time for a couple of board games before heading back to Sidney.

September 27-November 1

Pictures from (mostly) October.

Bonus Post: Sound Bites 54

Matthias: You buckle the down low and I'll buckle the up low.

Gretchen: This one has five kids and they are giving him a lot of trouble. His daughter keeps making babies so now he has to take care of those kids, too. She made a lot of babies and now he has, like, 100 kids to watch.

Bryan: I'm going to go out to the garage to build a unicorn hoof print.

Matthias: Mom, you're a big fatty. It's because of the two bumps on your belly.

Kaitlyn: Why did you make me try on those shoes if they didn't fit Rudy?
Me: Grandma asked me to have you try them on.
Kaitlyn: But you know we are the same age!
Me: Don't yell at me about it. You should be yelling at Grandma.
Kaitlyn: ...Why would I yell at Grandma? I like Grandma.

Matthias: Did the sun turn off?

Kaitlyn: Do we have any hanitizer?

Me: I'm so cool.

Gretchen: You are 50% cool.

Matthias: Can you snuggle me up?

Me: Can you count to 10?

Matthias: No.

Me: How high can you count?

Matthias: Shark.

Bonus Post: So Many Pictures

Here are several months worth of pictures. You can imagine the stories that go with them. :)

Pictures:

August 23-September 27

Theodore words: Mama, thank you, more, boom, uh-oh, bye, amen. He will repeat most sounds, but these are the words he uses consistently. He calls Bryan "Mom" very consistently, much to Bryan's chagrin. Despite an apparent willingness to repeat words back to us, Theodore refuses to use "Dad" for Bryan.

Theodore had a swimming crawl for a long time, but he did finally figure out regular crawling. He now uses that almost exclusively, although if he needs to get somewhere while holding something in each hand then he will revert to the swim. He can stand fabulously and cruises quickly along furniture, but is too chicken to actually take independent steps. His current attempts at walking are really just forward trust falls.

Kaitlyn has started learning to read and is doing quite well. She can sound out any three letter short vowel word now. She's also breezing through writing practice. Soon she'll have covered proper letter formation for all the letters and will be on to copy work of some sort to hone her skills.

Matthias is happily tagging along with Kaitlyn's school. He can identify all his capital letters and some of his lowercase letters. He knows that the letters make sounds, but is only correct on three of them (M, R, and S). He's been listening to Kaitlyn sound out words, though, and seems likely to catch on fairly quickly when his turn comes.

Kaitlyn and Gretchen started gymnastics and they are loving it. Kaitlyn has a beautiful cartwheel now and is hoping to learn something new soon. I bought some tumbling mats to put down in the living room so that she doesn't crack her head open trying to do handstands. Gretchen has a less beautiful cartwheel. She has been working on it, though, and the improvement is obvious to those of us who saw her first attempts. She gets both feet off the ground now.

Soccer season is almost over. Gretchen's pickup soccer games ended this past Thursday. Olivia has another week and a half. Olivia's team has been playing very well. I believe they have tied or won every game so far. Olivia had an assist once, although it sounds like it may have been an accident. Bryan says her aggression is lacking. Actually, what he said was, "I love her, but as a little girl soccer player she could be replaced by a traffic cone. But only if the traffic cone was afraid of the ball."

School continues to be held in person. Gretchen did get sent home one day because she had a headache, a sore throat, and a temperature of 98.9. The nurse said if I gave her any medication at all then she would have to stay home for 24 hours, so I did not treat her headache. It may not have mattered anyway, because she complained of neither a sore throat nor a headache all day. She returned to school the following morning. Other than that hiccup, everything has been fine.

I don't think I've mentioned yet, but we have new and improved back steps. Sometime over the summer Bryan took it upon himself to rebuild the steps (again; he's done this before). This time he made them extra long and extra wide. They are wonderful and I don't have to worry about Theodore falling out of the door or sitting down too close to the edge of the step.

Another rather inconsequential thing I haven't mentioned: We have an apple corer. This normally would not be noteworthy. However. Matthias refers to the hole in a cored apple as a tunnel. Now everyone asks for apples with tunnels. The kids don't normally finish an entire apple each, so I've been cutting the cored apples in half. This lends itself to two options: two halves with short tunnels, or two halves with half tunnels (halfpipes? perhaps we should have gone the skateboarding route...). Originally there was great debate over which kind of apple was best, the short tunnel or the half tunnel. We gradually started calling the half tunnel apples rainbow tunnels, because they look like rainbows. This of course increased the desirability of the half tunnel apples. And then... Uncle Will's band sings a song called Rainbow Tunnel and now, because of our apple corer, all the kids have heard this song and sing it when they ask for rainbow tunnels. No one ever chooses short tunnel apples anymore. And there's a lot more Rainbow Tunnel in all our lives.

Theodore had a birthday. Our baby is 1! He was probably our best cake smasher to date. After a very tentative check of the frosting, he was all in. With both hands. I used my springform layers that Bryan got me to make a three layer cake, so I was able to just remove the small top portion and let Theo have a grand old delicious time.

Brad and Shantelle got married on September 5 and the whole family was in the wedding. Everything went well and we all managed to pull of our respective reception dances. We did not manage to get a photo of just our family, but we are all in some of the group shots of the wedding party.

The boys had check-ups. Matthias is 36.5 pounds and 38.25 inches tall. Theodore is 21 pounds, 7 ounces, 30 inches tall, and has 9 teeth.

We also had eye doctor appointments. Kaitlyn and Matthias still look good. Gretchen's prescription improved slightly and the doctor said she could wear her glasses just for reading. I said that if it wouldn't ruin her eyes to wear them all the time then she was still going to do that. All I need is for Gretchen to have multiple reasons per day to remove her glasses. I'd spend a fortune on glasses. Olivia was ecstatic to learn that her eye drops are no longer necessary. Her lazy eye has been corrected enough that they are content to just use glasses to keep it in line now. Both girls got to pick out new frames which should arrive this week.

Olivia has started piano lessons. We got a real piano because her teacher said that better habits and technique will be formed on a real piano than on the weighted electric piano we already had. So now we have two pianos. She is enjoying her lessons and thus far has been very willing to practice.

We've seen Joe and Angelina a couple of times since they moved to Columbus a month ago. It's been very exciting. Jacque, Will, and Julian also made it down to visit for a week, which was quite enjoyable. Since everyone is working virtually, longer midweek visits are suddenly a possibility. :)

Bryan and I celebrated our 10 year anniversary on Friday! We thought about getting a sitter and going out to eat, but then decided it would be more pleasant to stay home and watch Brooklyn 99, so that's what we did. We are planning to take a trip to Niagara (the American side) at the end of October.

I have pictures coming soon, I promise. I'm on Instagram now and post pictures there periodically if you don't want to have to wait.

Bonus Post: Sound Bites 53

Kaitlyn: Mom gave me medicine and it made my throat gone.

Me: M for Mmmatthias. G for Gggretchen.

Matthias: U for William?

Me: U for Uuuncle.

Matthias: L.

Me: L for Ollllivia. L for Kaitllllyn. L for Willlllliam.

Matthias: L for Feeeeedore.

Me: No. L for Wallllter.

Matthias: F! For Feeeeedore?

Me: No. Well... Yes, I suppose.

Olivia: It's not MY fault I didn't get out of bed yet!

Kaitlyn: Matthias is going to be a ring bear.

Matthias: I want to be a ring lion.

Gretchen: No, he's going to be a ring barrier.

Olivia: True or false, Piper's last name is Knight.

Gretchen: True.

Olivia: False.

Gretchen: I was close.

Matthias: I don't like to sleep on Theodore's team so Theodore will cry and wake me up.

Kaitlyn: Gretchen, here's the embarrassing thing: I have THREE mosquito bites.

Gretchen: That's not embarrassing. That's-- Mom, what does astonishing mean?

Me: Astonishing means very surprising.

Gretchen: Oh, that's not astonishing, either.

Kaitlyn: Aren't you supposed to get out of bed when that timer goes off?

Me: That's Daddy's timer.

Kaitlyn: Wait, that's Daddy's box of time?!

July 12-August 23

I'm going to hit the highlights and hopefully (maybe) flesh things out in a later post. Hah.

Kaitlyn and Matthias can both ride bikes without training wheels. I don't remember the exact timetable, but Kaitlyn was not yet successful at the writing of my last post (July 10, most likely) and Matthias was beginning by the time Mom and James arrived. Kaitlyn learned first. So sometime between July 10 and 14, both Kaitlyn and Matthias graduated to big kid bikes. By the end of July they had both mastered starting, stopping, and steering as well.

Matthias had a birthday. He turned 3 on July 11. We had a blue birthday cake because he's been talking about his "big blue birthday" for the better part of a year.

Olivia had a birthday. She turned 9 on August 3. She's old enough to understand fasting, so she accepts that she needs to pick two birthday dinners: a fasting one for her actual birthday and whatever she wants for the first available day after the Dormition fast ends.

My whole family came to visit. The first arrivals were Mom and James on July 14. People trickled in until July 26 when the Smiths arrived last (only slightly behind Jacob and Rachel). Then we were all together until Dad, Jacob, and Rachel had to leave on the 31st. Dispersing was a much quicker process, and we bid farewell to Mom and James on August 4.

I bought a new viola! Mom and I went down to Baroque Violin Shop in Cincinnati and took over a room in their warehouse for a few hours so that I could try violas as they brought them to me. I got to take two home for an extended trial. A few weeks later I called them to find out how to keep one and how to send the other one back. It's all taken care of now. :)

Olivia and Gretchen started soccer. Gretchen's is technically just well organized play dates in the park ("wear your soccer clothes") because her league got canceled. Olivia's team practices three times a week and starts games tomorrow.

Kaitlyn decided that she'd rather do gymnastics than dance, so we checked out a gym. She starts on September 8 and is working on her cartwheel. Gretchen is going to start as well, despite some reservations on both our parts. Her cartwheel is progressing much more slowly. Olivia is hoping to be allowed to join her sisters once soccer is finished for the season.

School started on Wednesday. As of now it is completely in person, all day, every day. Masks are required and distancing is practiced. From what the girls have told me, the school has found a good balance between practical health measures and overkill. Class sizes at the school are in the 15-20 students range and Allen County isn't exactly a coronavirus hotspot, so things look okay right now. The school also has all of the kids working on individual devices in Google classrooms, both to avoid sharing supplies and to make a potential transition home easier.

My Music Together summer session was outside -- in our gaga pit. It went quite well. If Ohio winters weren't a thing, I'd be thinking about having it in the gaga pit all the time. I'll be holding my fall session there as well until the weather gets too unpleasant.

Related, we have a gaga pit. I had never heard of Gaga Ball until the girls went to St Charles, but it's apparently a nationwide thing. It's basically enclosed, below the waist dodgeball. Gretchen thought it would be fun to have our own pit, so she and Bryan built one. It's a little smaller than most, but that's okay because we don't have as many people using it.

Bonus Post: Sound Bites 52

Gretchen, giggling: Would you rather eat jam on ham or a boy named Sam?

Matthias, rummaging around in the corner of my room: Can I have this?
Me: No?
Matthias: But I need what I need.

Bryan, dishing out Chinese food: What do you want on this?
Gretchen: Ketchup!

Matthias: Dad, look at your ears!
Me: Can you look at your ears?
Matthias: No.
Me: Why not?
Matthias: Because my head is on.

Gretchen: When I grow up I'm going to be a saint. And if I can't be a saint then I'll be a ninja. And if I can't be a ninja then I'll be a pop star.

Me: What do your turtles eat?
Kaitlyn: Grass.
Me: Where do you get all the grass?
Kaitlyn: Oh, in Aprica. But we don't live in Aprica, so we have to drive there to get it.

Gretchen: Do you think Daddy knows how to spell Punxsutawney?
Me: Definitely not.
Gretchen: Oooooh, if Daddy was in second grade at St Charles and got all his regular words right so he had the bonus list then he would get one wrong!
Bryan: ...I'm so embarrassed.

Oma: Get dressed.
Matthias: No, I do not wear dresses! Olivia and Gretchen and Kaitlyn wear dresses. Me and Theo wear clothes. And Dad wears clothes.

Walter: What kind of juice are you drinking?
Matthias: The juice that you drink when you are dying.

June 7-July 12

Whoever coined the term ankle biter may have had a baby like Theodore. He seems to have developed a fondness for sneaking up on unsuspecting feet and chomping down on the nearest part, which often happens to be the ankles. We warn anyone who's in danger, but Theodore is lucky he hasn't gotten accidentally reflex kicked in the face.

We took a trip to visit the Kleins back at the end of May. The whole family went down and we stayed overnight. On the way, Matthias had to go to the bathroom and, due to a lack of available facilities, discovered the joys of peeing on trees. Now on long car trips he periodically says, "I have to pee on a tree." Fantastic.

In mid June I took the kids to Pittsburgh to visit the Bossards while Bryan stayed home and led the fabulous bachelor life. We usually sleep in the attic, which gets quite hot in the summer. Luckily, Justine and Joseph had considered this and had an air conditioning unit arriving on Tuesday. Unluckily, we showed up on Monday. Everyone survived though, and by Wednesday evening it was pleasant enough even during the day.

All the cousins paired off during the visit and had a grand old time. Olivia, William, Gretchen, and Edward spent most of their inside time planning hide and seek. They all walked around with modern magna doodles making lists and drawing diagrams of the perfect hiding places in each room. The lists and diagrams were top secret and had to be protected from the other pair at all costs. Justine and I are pretty sure that over the course of the week they never actually got around to hiding. :)

All the kids spent a fair amount of time outside, taking turns riding the various wheeled things. Walter allowed the pedals to be taken off his bike so that Gretchen could practice balancing, which she did for several days. When we came home she was riding her own bike with pedals and without training wheels in ten minutes. This gave Kaitlyn renewed enthusiasm, and we took her pedals and training wheels off for her to learn as well. A week later we ended up putting them all back on.

Josef and Angelina came to visit over Father's Day weekend. They were moving Angelina's mother to Cleveland and then went to Columbus to check out apartments before coming to stay with us for a couple of days. It was fun to see them and we're looking forward to this fall when they live closer.

We've been to Steve and Murry's a couple of times now, and we've been taking the kids' bikes so that we can go on family walks/rides down the bike path. I do appreciate the walking and riding opportunities there. We should probably invest in a bike rack since the only other way to bring all the bikes is by taking an extra vehicle.

Murry wanted to have some time with each kid, so she came and got them one at a time for 24 hours. They did all sorts of things and there was a bonus post this past Wednesday with pictures. When Matthias was gone, I was reflecting on how much more peaceful it was when just one child was missing. Then Matthias came back and Gretchen left and suddenly it wasn't peaceful anymore. Which child is missing definitely matters. Due to ages and temperaments, the worst one to be missing right now is definitely Gretchen. Matthias is probably the best one, but only because Kaitlyn doesn't require me to constantly entertain her.

All the kids had some of their own money to spend a couple of months ago, and they carefully selected items from Amazon. Matthias bought matchbox cars, Kaitlyn bought polly pockets, Olivia bought a necklace (that still hasn't arrived), and Gretchen bought a birdhouse with a window on the back. We didn't read the description carefully enough, though, because the window is not a two way mirror like we though it was. It's just plexiglass. Much to Gretchen's delight, a bird moved in within a week. The bird was less delighted once it realized that giant heads kept popping up to look at it. We bought a camera that connects to an app so that we could watch the bird without scaring it.

Keshia's daughter, Rudy, turned five at the end of June. She had Kaitlyn over for a sleepover; they were so excited to see each other again. Kaitlyn was a little sad that it was only for one day, but she was happy to get to spend time at Rudy's by herself.

Theodore is pulling himself up on things. He spent a day panicking about being stuck once he got to standing and another day practicing plopping down on his bum. He still gets himself stuck at an awkward angle every now an again, but he's improved greatly. Now he's cruising slowly along the edge of furniture and is quite pleased with himself. He also discovered the card catalog drawers, so we've put our elegant baby proofing fence back up.

Well visit stats:
Theodore, 9.5 months -- 19 pounds, 4 ounces; 28 inches
Kaitlyn, 5 years and 2 months -- 43.4 pounds, 42.5 inches
Gretchen, 7 years and 1 month -- 49 pounds, 48.25 inches

Pictures:

Bonus Post: Alone with Grandma

Just a lot of pictures of time spent with Grandma.

Bonus Post: Sound Bites 51

Matthias: *burps* I burped.
Me: What do you say when you burp?
Matthias: ... Buuuuuuuurrrrrrrrrrp.

Kaitlyn: I made this for you.
Justine: Is this a drawing of me?
Kaitlyn: Yes!
Justine: I'm... an angry tornado.
Kaitlyn: You're a happy heart!

Gretchen: Does Pennsylvania have monsters like the Pennsylvania in the movie?
Me: That's Transylvania.

Me: We're on the road!
Matthias: Yeah, but not on the grass. Or the trees.

Me: I need you to get the little broom and sweep up your fingernail clippings so that Theodore doesn't eat them for a snack.
Olivia: Aww, why can't we just put them under something?

Me: I like your haircut. Grandma did a good job.
Matthias: Yeah, and you do a bad job.

Kaitlyn: It's a Google Home Minion!

Angelina: You get cuter every time I see you, do you know that?
Matthias: Yeah.
Kaitlyn: He doesn't know very much.

James (a friend, not the uncle): I'm happy!
Kaitlyn: You wouldn't be happy if your whole body was covered with fire.

May 10-June 7

You can tell things are getting busier around here again because my blogging has taken a hit. It was not destined to last. We've started interacting with people again. Our in person game nights are still fewer than they used to be, but we have had a couple. The biggest difference right now from pre-coronavirus is that we're not going to public things, which is absolutely fine with me. At this point in the year normal daily obligations would have been finished anyway since school and dance both wrap up in May. We attended Catholic Mass in person last week as a family. We also got permission from the Orthodox Bishop to have up to 25 people at a service, so we were able to go to Liturgy this weekend.

Theodore says Mama. He's been playing with different sounds for a while now, but we're pretty sure Mama actually means me. At least sometimes. He says dadadada, but doesn't mean Bryan yet. His favorite noises are a high pitched happy screech and a tongue clicking sound.

Matthias's potty problems are improving. He takes a low dose of daily Miralax to help him and has finally been convinced that sitting on the potty isn't in and of itself painful. We've talked a lot about how he has special juice to make his poop feel better because his Miralax was always in kool-aid. Now that we've run out of kool-aid we just use water and he still calls it juice. Except that it's been a bit mangled in translation, so when he sees me preparing his glass he excitedly exclaims, "Is that juice to feel my poop?!" Yes. Yes, it is.

We finally went back to the store. The last time I went grocery shopping was March 20. Bryan went on March 29. And then we waited. At some point it became more of a challenge then anything else. We emptied the deep freezer and defrosted it. We ground the last of our wheat. We finished off several of those bulk food buckets I keep in the pantry. I made some interesting dinners that were just random ingredients thrown together. I learned that you have to substitute 1 3/4 cups of powdered sugar to replace 1 cup of regular white sugar. We have chocolate granola now because I used chocolate syrup to provide the sweetness. We had originally planned to try to make it until June. I thought we'd get there. But Bryan got tired of oatmeal for breakfast, sandwiches for lunch, and some variation of rice and beans for dinner. So he snuck out of the house with Matthias before I woke up on Saturday, May 23, and went to Walmart. Each of the kids got a solo trip with dad to the grocery store. We made it one day shy of eight weeks. In fairness, our meals did improve in quality. I went to Aldi to fill in the gaps on the 28th. Now we're probably back to a somewhat regular grocery shopping regimen.

Olivia had an eye doctor appointment and with her glasses on she can read the 20/20 line with her bad eye! They told her she has to keep using the eye drops for the next three weeks, but if she can still read 20/20 at her next appointment then she's done. She was disappointed to still need the drops, but is happy to have an end in sight. She is a little worried that she'll have to give up her glasses once her eye is fixed. I guess she's attached to them by now. :)

Matthias runs around in bare feet all the time. All the kids do, actually, which baffles me because I don't even walk around the house in bare feet. I wear shoes. Always. The kids have nicely calloused feet, though, and have to be reminded to put on shoes if we're going somewhere where they might be expected to get out of the car and walk into a public building. Anyway, Matthias managed to get a series of splinters in his feet and they were buried deep enough that we couldn't get them out. I took him to the doctor (and found out that he's 36 pounds) and they dug/cut three splinters out of his poor little feet. He's better now, and they recommend foot wear.

Pictures:

Bonus Post: Sound Bites 50

Olivia: What can I read?
Me: *suggests looking up Beverly Cleary since she just finished Ramona*
Olivia: None of these look good.
Me: *looks up lists online and feeds her titles one at a time to search*
Olivia: These don't look like ones I would like.
Me: What about them is something you don't like?
Olivia: I don't know.
Me: What about Harry Potter? Your friend Elaine is reading that.
Bryan: I think you'd like Harry Potter even more than you like Pokemon.
Olivia: Well I don't want to read it if I'll like it more than Pokemon.
Me: ...

Matthias, holding a 5: Mom, when I flip this over it turns into a 2! Wait, I will get a 3 and turn it into a 4!

Me: Kaitlyn, stop whining. You do not need glasses to do that trick. You could just hang the turtle on your ear.

Matthias: My pants are wet and my feet are wet.
Me: Do you need new pants?
Matthias: Yeah. And new feet.

Gretchen: Anything is possible for God?! That means he can make unicorns real!

Matthias: My food goes to my feet and my water and juice and milk go to my belly.

Gretchen: Mom, know what I want to be when I grow up? A saint.

Kaitlyn: I'm telling the truth of this. Gretchen was on my bed and we were playing happily, but she got her foot on my blankie and made it stinky.

Matthias: When I am bigger I will go to school and play the monster game and play Pokemon!

April 26-May 10

I was looking through old blog books and remembering all the things I used to do with the kids. It would appear that in 2015 I had a garden that actually grew vegetables, not just weeds. And Olivia and Gretchen helped me make lots of applesauce and apple pies. As I wistfully wish for what once was (ignoring the fact that there were fewer children, as well as the realization that I documented more high points than low points), I am reminded of something that I heard a homeschooling mom say in a talk at a conference once. Loosely paraphrased: You don't have to do fun (impressive, fabulously educational, etc) things all the time. Just make sure that when you do you document them well and take lots of pictures. :-D

Matthias has a sing song voice now and it is super annoying. You didn't get me. I got the blue plate. Kaitlyn is a meany head. I have Gretchen's yo-yo. Ugh.

Theodore's chew toy of choice is a thin band of plastic. A bracelet, the ring that holds the baby keys, one of those plastic links. He doesn't like the fatter, softer teethers as much.

Bryan and I bought a learn new dance moves mini-series of classes to work through, but so far we've been so busy with game nights that we haven't had a chance to try more than one. On the flip side, we have been pleasantly occupied by virtual game nights. :)

Theodore is a problem. He army crawls everywhere. He enters a room that's been swept twice and picks up little things that only he can see. Then he puts them in his mouth where they become dust bunnies and pieces of paper. I've set up the baby cage in the dining room. Sometimes he doesn't mind being in there. Sometimes he can be lured in by a series of strategically placed toys. Sometimes he hates it. Kaitlyn and Matthias are strangely drawn to the baby cage, whether Theodore is in it or not.

I've been taking the time to sit with Theodore in his cage, which makes him happier to be contained. I am reminded of how I used to sit with Olivia, back when she was the only one and I had no one else's needs to consider. Theodore gets me when the other kids are occupied, but I often try to sneak out when he's not looking. Olivia and I spent entire afternoons in her cage, all of her toys stacked in one tasteful box and all of her books on one tiny shelf. I'd bring a book or magazine and read while she played contentedly. As I write this, I'm in Theodore's cage with him, watching him shove his toys out through the bars and then struggle to get them back.

Beautiful weather has brought lots of outdoor time. Poor Matthias has a ring of unsunburned flesh around each eye. He looks like a goofy raccoon. He needs about a gallon of sunscreen every time he looks out the window, but he gets none. His mother should maybe try being less forgetful and distracted.

Kaitlyn knows all of her letters and we've moved on to purposeful study of letter sounds. She's even tried sounding out a few words, but the concept of stringing the sounds together eludes her. She is very excited to be a little closer to reading. She also writes all of the letters now. She's the first one of the kids to write with a mix of capital and lowercase letters from the beginning, I think mostly due to Gretchen's tutelage.

Matthias recognizes all the letters except V and Z. And he calls D T and G R. If I call him out on the D and G he can concentrate and usually come up with the right answer, but his gut reaction is T and R.

We're in the home stretch for school. I picked up the last packets for the girls on Monday and they finish up on May 22. Gretchen remains highly motivated but more distracted. Olivia finds everything "apparently boring." She sounds like a teenager, but with a worse grasp on what the words she uses actually mean.

We've started reading at the dinner table. Bryan and I always finish eating well before the kids do and then spend the rest of the meal trying to think of conversation topics until we get antsy enough to declare the meal close enough to over. Keeping that in mind and also trying to think of ways to trick Olivia into trying new books, I decided to start reading when I'm finished eating. We're about a third of the way through the first Harry Potter book now. Except Olivia -- she checked it out from the library on the second night and now has to spend dinners reviewing the story and working to contain the spoilers built up inside her head.

Theodore discovered a clucking noise at dinner last night and is very pleased to hear people clucking back at him. He also likes to shake his head and watch people shake their heads back.

Pictures:

April 19-26

Three weeks ago we made a deal with some friends: Both of our families would stay home from everything including grocery stores for two weeks and if we were all healthy at the end of it then we would get together for a couple of days in person. This past Monday our deal ended and the Miroglios came over for half of Monday and all of Tuesday. They have a daughter in first grade at St Charles, a son who was in Kaitlyn's catechesis class, and a daughter about a year younger than Matthias. It was fabulous. The kids were all so happy to see each other and play together. The adults were also happy for in person interaction. We played board games, watched the kids play outside on the driveway, and chatted while we cooked meals. 10/10 highly recommend.

Matthias refers to the girls collectively as "your sisters" instead of "my sisters." He talks about playing with your sisters and going into your sisters' room.

Gretchen had a birthday! She turned 7 on Friday. We had pancakes with a square of butter for dinner and a chocolate mint cake for dessert. Her friend Leon from school had a birthday on Saturday, and he dropped off birthday cookies on the porch. We left him a piece of birthday cake. :)

Kaitlyn has been working on recognizing letters and now knows all of them at least some of the time. We've started working on letter sounds because she wants to be able to read.

Matthias knows about 75% of his letters. We have some of our foam letters out on the living room floor and he walks around the edge naming letters as he goes.

Last Sunday I reported that Theodore could not move forward, could not pick things up, and could not transfer things from his hands to his mouth. On Monday he achieved all three. By yesterday he was completely confident in his ability to go wherever he wanted and was (usually) not discouraged by distance.

Pictures:

April 12-19

Christ is Risen!

One thing this pandemic is good for... My blog is being written more frequently again. I'd have preferred to reach that goal without the fuss of mass destruction and death, but c'est la vis. I'll take what I can get right now.

Virus confusion is rampant over here. If we can't do anything, it's because of the virus (mostly true). Matthias thinks we should solve this by running very fast to our car and then driving to wherever he wants to go. Once we get there, we can again use our super speed to evade those laughably slow viruses. Kaitlyn knows this won't work, because everywhere we go there is a man (The Virus? Mr Corona Virus?) who will breathe on us and we will get sick.

Matthias is preparing for a life of crime. Last Saturday he began his efforts by burning off a couple of fingerprints. Bryan had just made popcorn and Matthias, being his nosy self, stuck his hands up on the stove to try to get some popcorn. Alas, he got a handful of recently turned off burner instead. He blistered two fingertips on his right hand. He's never been burned badly before; usually he grazes a pan that's been out of the oven for a few minutes, puts an ice pack on the sore spot for approximately 40 seconds, and is good to go. This time he couldn't understand why the ice pack wasn't working. "It still hurts! I need you to kiss it." I kissed it, and he looked at me with betrayal written on his teary face. "It still hurts!" And so begins the realization that mom's kisses don't actually fix everything. He suffered noisily through application of aloe and bandaids and more ice. He did eventually calm down and we let him stay up to watch a movie while the pain receded enough for him to sleep. By Sunday morning he was very focused on making sure he got PJ Masks bandaids, so we proclaimed him cured enough.

Update on Matthias's criminal preparations: This week he went into the bathroom, got some shampoo, and rubbed it in his eye. He immediately regretted his decision and tried to rub it out of his eye -- with his shampoo covered hand. Now retinal scans can't catch him, either.

Other Matthias things:
~He likes to wear his sisters' shoes. Those are the ones he can get on himself. He will choose boots over shoes, so he often clomps around in boots three sizes too big.
~He covers his eyes if he doesn't want you to look at him and his ears if something is too loud or jarring. If he is scared, he will try to cover both his eyes and his ears, which results in him successfully covering one of each and hugging his head with his elbows.

The girls have found a series they enjoy on Netflix (which we don't have, but they watch at Grandma's) called Miraculous. It's about normal teenagers who can turn into superheros with the help of ...little creatures called miraculas? Maybe? I'm unsure about the actual mechanics. There's one main bad guy who uses evil moths to turn regular people having a bad day into mini villains bent on wreaking havoc and stealing the miraculas. Once the superheros defeat the villains, they catch the moths and de-evilize them. Or something. Anyway, the girls (and Matthias sometimes) like to play games based on this show and they leap around on the furniture being the multiple characters and their alter egos. The interesting part is that they've started making up their own mini villains to defeat. Each one has a backstory for how he became susceptible to main bad guy's moths. Then they give him a name, a havoc wreaking purpose, and a costume. It's quite interesting to listen to.

Our fruit trees have blossoms! The apricot blossomed, but then snow came and it dropped them all. Please don't be dead, apricot tree. :( Three plums and the peach tree weathered the storm and are still flowering. The pears (presumably three) are still working on flowers. This could be a very tasty summer. :)

Theodore has three top teeth to go with his two bottom teeth, and I think I see the beginnings of a fourth top tooth and a third bottom tooth. If you're going to grow teeth, you might as well do them all at the same time. With both top and bottom teeth has come the teeth clicking. All of our kids didn't do this, but I remember at least Olivia having the habit of rubbing her teeth against each other to make a little clicking noise. Theodore does that as well. I think it's more of a tactile thing than a noise thing, but it is annoying regardless.

Lent is a good time for trying new foods. Theodore has tried pea soup, corn chowder, and the beans from Dominican beans and rice. They're basically flavorful refried beans. This is in addition to the beets and red cabbage that he'd already had. Oh, and the banana that he stole from me once. He now consistently swallowing his food instead of letting it dribble back out of his mouth. He also sucks on bread crumbs until they become nothing in his mouth. Theodore is of Gretchen's opinion about food: All of it is delicious and I need more now.

Other Theodore things:
~He's working on the closed mouth g sound (why do they all try that one?) as well as on buh. We hear a lot of buh in various registers.
~He tried to catch a sunbeam during church. More accurately, he tried to eat it when he saw it on the floor.
~He really wants to be able to crawl, but can't figure it out. He has learned how to get where he wants by rolling.
~He's not a strong sitter. I mostly put him down on his stomach, so he hasn't had much chance to practice.

I pulled out my high school art things to show Gretchen the other day. She was very happy to see the sketches especially. Unfortunately, I had to throw everything out after showing her because it all got wet at some point and there was mildew on everything. Many of the papers were still damp, I assume because they were stored stacked together in the portfolio. All my favorite pieces are framed and displayed around the house, and the few that weren't were salvageable because they were laminated. I was sad for the demise of my sketchbooks, though.

Head scarves have really taken off around here since we've been having church at home. The girls found my whole collection and enjoy picking out scarves to wear. Olivia favors the green one from Russia which she wraps loosely so that it can "look like a hijab." She read a picture book that explained what hijabs were and she thinks they're pretty. We've explained the religious implications and she doesn't care, as long as it looks like the picture in her book. Gretchen likes to get my dark red scarf and wrap it so that she looks like Mary. She is disappointed that it's not bigger because all of our icons of Mary have the red extending down almost to her waist. Kaitlyn usually tries to find the softest scarf and then wears it like a cloak. Matthias is jealous of everyone else's head gear and claims the brown scarf for his own. He looks quite beautiful in it.

We've let bedtime get away from us. Because there's no reason to get up early in the morning and because we're often playing games via video chat, we don't go in as often to settle things down and the girls don't wind down naturally on their own as quickly. Once we quiet them down they do alright, but both Olivia and Gretchen have been known to stay up reading way too late and then they sleep in the next morning.

The big girls are at the age where they spell a lot of things unnecessarily. The two most spelled things in our house are d-e-s-s-e-r-t and p-o-k-e-m-o-n. I'm not even sure they know how to ask for them without spelling anymore.

Pictures:

Bonus Post: Sound Bites 49

Kaitlyn: Daddy, do you have a mustache?
Bryan: Yes.
Matthias: Can I eat a mustache?
Bryan: ...No.
Matthias: Well I have a beard.
Bryan: You have a beard?
Matthias: Yes! In my belly. I will show you. *lifts up shirt*
Bryan: Ooh.
Matthias: So I can eat a mustache!

Bryan: Do you want cookies for dessert? Or should we have something else so that we can keep testing Mommy's willpower?
Me: If you don't eat those cookies for dessert then I'm going to eat them tonight.
Gretchen: You can have my cookie, Mom, I'll take one willpower.

Matthias: The virus will come through the gate and get me!

Kaitlyn: ...That's the way the Mommy goes, pop! goes the weasel.
Bryan: That's the way the mommy goes.
Matthias: She's right there!

Grandma: What's that on your face?
Olivia: A tattoo.
Matthias: Well on MY face is dirt.

Olivia: How do you say hummer?
Me: Hummer.
Olivia: No, I mean like when something is funny or a joke.
Me: Oh, you mean humor!

Matthias: Do you want to hit the virus with your sword?

Olivia, discussing sparkling grape juice: Well, if you put more of that in then it will turn into... something. Probably.

April 5-12

Life at home ebbs and flows. One morning everything is great and I feel like we've finally gotten into the rhythm of our new routine. Then Theodore wakes up early or Matthias falls off a chair or Kaitlyn gets spit up in her mouth (true story, eww), or all three at once, and suddenly the afternoon is a whiny cranky mess for me as well as the children.

Our church of choice during the shelter at home orders is St Michael's in Whittier. We tried a couple of different services and I think that's where we've finally landed. Of course, if you'd asked me this question each of the last three Sundays, you would have gotten a different answer each week. So we'll see.

Matthias loves to read books. When the big girls were still at school, he and I read most days for 30-60 minutes at a time, often multiple times per day. He would ask me to read one book and then when I sat down on the couch would run to grab more, yelling, "I'll be right back! I'm getting more books." Then he'd return, laden with as many books as he could carry saying, "I have lotsanough." Now that we're holding school in our dining room, my reading time with Matthias has suffered. :(

Another thing that has suffered is my viola playing. I had a good practice thing going, but now I just don't fit it in anymore. Some of that is because I have to spend time helping/nagging the girls. Some of it is because Theodore has finally come into his own with naps and is taking two solid naps each day -- in my room. Yay naps, but my viola is inaccessible during that time.

I have tried several times to move Theodore into Matthias's room, but something has always happened to make him end up back in the oratory. Most recently, Matthias has been complaining that Theo wakes him up. That's not strictly true. Theodore does not wake Matthias up if the latter is already sleeping, but he DOES keep him from falling asleep. The stoic distress of the two year old is quite apparent, so we decided to keep Theodore in our room until he goes to sleep better at night. Despite this, Matthias still gets slightly panicked if I bring Theo in the bedroom at bedtime, even if it's just for a new diaper.

We've been playing a lot of games over here. The big girls learned to play Mastermind and really enjoy it. They've also pulled out Forbidden Island a couple of times. I taught Olivia to play Bananagrams with marginal success. She likes it enough to play again, but she definitely struggles with seeing options and with being flexible enough to rearrange. Kaitlyn's game of choice right now is The Very Hungry Caterpillar, which is a simple game that ends when you build a butterfly out of puzzle pieces. Sometimes she plays the game and sometimes she just builds all the puzzles. Matthias has been enjoying Sequence for Kids, so those pieces are often scattered all over the floor. Other games that see a lot of use include Hullabaloo and Spot It.

Theodore continues to improve his purposeful movement. His current frustration is that he goes backwards quite well, which is not at all what he's trying to accomplish. He still hasn't mastered crawling, but he rolls and scoots and tries to capture bits of whatever he can find on the floor. Luckily for us, his pincer grip hasn't developed yet, so we have a little bit of time to up our keep-things-off-the-floor game. The older kids and I had a meeting during one of his naps to discuss how if it is on the floor, Theodore WILL eat it. I'm not sure if the take away was everything I wanted it to be, but I did get to watch all four of them simultaneously rocking on hands and knees to demonstrate how Theo tries to crawl, so there's that.

Theo is our worst teether. When his bottom two teeth were coming in his sleep suffered and I ended up having to use Tylenol to help him calm down enough to go back to sleep in the middle of the night. Now his top teeth are coming in and he's been waking up screaming again. Friday night was Tylenol again in the middle of the night and about an hour of walking and singing while he whimpered on my shoulder before I was able to nurse him and put him down. On Saturday morning his teeth were through, though, so maybe we're in the clear until the next set comes.

Matthias is over sistered and under napped. The poor guy just starts the day cranky and needs time alone to recover. If I catch him early then I can convince him to take some time alone in his room with his train tracks and he comes out in a much better mood. He could still use a daily nap, but he often doesn't fall asleep, so his regular nap has fallen by the wayside. He gets one once or twice a week when I can't handle the whining anymore.

Theodore's hair was in his eyes all the time, so I finally trimmed his bangs. 7 month olds are not known for their ability to sit still (or even sit, necessarily, especially when they don't get to practice much because they're much safer from older siblings if they're prone) which made it a bit of an adventure. That combined with my lack of confidence for little boy haircuts in general led me to decide to just quickly snip his bangs. Now he has a baby bowl cut and Bryan thinks he looks like a little girl from the 60s. :/

Pictures:

March 22-April 5

A scene:

Picture Matthias in the pink motorized jeep that we have. He sits in the passenger seat, water gun clutched firmly in his right hand. With his left hand he works the lever that changes the car from drive to reverse, preferring to keep it in reverse, but reluctant to believe that it will stay that way without his constant interference. One pudgy foot edges across the divider to press the pedal and (backwards) movement is achieved. He appears to not even consider utilizing the steering wheel, content to wave his gun and go where he may. But, what's this? The radio is right in front of him! The joy is indescribable. He presses the button, foot still on the pedal, water gun still in hand, and does a little dance as he careens backwards toward the basketball hoop. And then... His foot gets tired, he releases the pedal, and glides gently to a stop, reveling in the wonders of being two.

When Gretchen was two, I wrote a story about her being terrorized by a bug. Since then, we've had the occasional brief panic, but nothing too bad. Until Friday. I had just settled into my rocker to nurse Theodore and put him down for a nap. Suddenly, Olivia burst into the room. I asked what was wrong and she said, "Gretchenisalarmedbyabugonhersweater." Understanding nothing other than "Gretchen," I made her repeat herself. "Apparently Gretchen is very alarmed by a bug on her sweater." At that moment, panicked shrieks wafted into the bedroom. I informed Olivia that I was busy with Theodore, but that she should try to help Gretchen and I would be there as soon as I could. Olivia left and Kaitlyn came in. "Gretchen is screaming about a bug." Yes, yes, I could hear her now. The neighbors probably thought she was dying a painfully bloody death. Kaitlyn was sent to deliver the same calming message as Olivia. The screaming continued. Olivia returned, and I sent her out to use a stick to brush the bug off Gretchen. This was unacceptable to Gretchen, as then the bug might fall on Gretchen's feet. The screaming rose in pitch. I rushed Theodore through his routine as well as I could with the interruptions, deposited him unceremoniously in his bed, and left the bedroom to find an eerie silence. Gretchen was curled up in a ball on the corner of the couch, tears streaming silently down her cheeks. She told me she had finally screamed loudly enough that the bug fell off and then she ran inside. I calmed her down and we talked about bugs. Did she move around at all to try to get it off? No. Did she wave her arms at it? No. Did she flick it off with a finger or a stick? No. She just screamed and hoped. Oh, and looked at it, because if she had looked away then it might have disappeared to who knows where. We're working on bug coping strategies, but I have a feeling that the bug panic in her poor brain will overwhelm any solutions she might know.

Kaitlyn had a birthday! She turned five with little fanfare because of the coronavirus. She was handling it quite well, telling everyone that "You can't come to my birthday because there's going to be a VIRUS." On her actual birthday, though, she did say that it was a sad birthday because she couldn't see anyone. :( She got to video chat with a bunch of people, though, and I made her pizza and a tiered strawberry cake, and she got Anna and Elsa polly pockets as a gift. And now she's five, of which fact she is quite proud.

Theodore is working hard on his two top teeth. They are almost poked though the gums, but not quite. In an effort to encourage them, he bites everything he can get his little mouth on. He also leads with an open mouth for every encounter with, well, everything.

Theodore has achieved purposeful movement. He's been rocking on hands and knees for about a week now, but hasn't quite figured out how to get all his parts moving together. He HAS figured out how to do a rather spectacular face plant. I'm not convinced he can get exactly where he wants to get, especially in a high pressure situation such as desperately needing to traverse those two inches to mom so she can pick him up, but he will spin in circles on his belly to chase a toy and he will roll across the floor in an effort to catch up with a ball. He's quite good at going backwards in his attempts to crawl, and manages to cover great distances, albeit in the wrong direction.

We've been melting wax this week. One day was spent melting down all our old candle stubs and pouring them into candle holders. I have leftover wicks from a beeswax candle rolling craft, so I've been using those in my new candles. They work much better than braided embroidery floss. The sight of the melted wax triggered Olivia's memory, and she hauled out our crayon melting machine. It came with two molds, one for crayon shapes and the other for ring shapes. You can guess which one is more popular. Conveniently, the more popular shape is also more durable. We now have a quite extensive collection of marbled crayon jewelry.

Olivia is lacking in ambition. She will do exactly what is asked and not one single step more. Bryan says she gets that from him. She certainly doesn't get it from me. "Don't you want to take a few more Accelerated Reader tests? You've already read the books, you might as well take the tests." No. She does not want to, because she's already reached her goal. She also does not think it sounds like fun to fit as many spelling words as possible into one sentence. Some things about this child I can claim, but not this. I managed to fit all her spelling words (15 of them) into three sentences and she was merely tolerant rather than inspired. If I'd thought about it longer, I bet I could have fit them into two.

Gretchen is the opposite. She has loads of ambition. She always has ideas and is going above and beyond. Unless she gets distracted, in which case it doesn't get done at all. Oh well. Yesterday she designed her own sewing project. She was inspired by a piece of fabric, decided to make a crown, and set to work. She cut the pieces and sewed them. She accidentally cut one in half and modified her design so that it would still work. Then she realized that she'd forgotten to put the right sides together, and she learned the valuable lesson of how to use a seam ripper. She resewed them properly, flipped them, stuffed them, closed them, and... decided to turn them into a butterfly instead because that's what they looked like to her. So she sewed a butterfly. I did help tie two knots during the hand sewing process, but the rest she did all by herself.

School is coming along. We're officially out of school and locked down until the beginning of May now. Bryan and I prepared the girls for the probability that they would not get to go back to school during this school year, so they're taking it well. We have a routine now, and things get done when they need to get done. Tomorrow I have to go into the school to turn in their finished packets and pick up new ones. Kaitlyn sometimes does school with the big girls, writing letters and working on some color by letter sheets. Matthias plays a lot of Spot It, which is an I Spy kind of game. He also likes to put the pegs in Mastermind, which we pulled out and taught to the big girls. It's quite popular over here right now. Contrary to the news in my last post, Gretchen is not learning cursive. After her initial interest she forgot about it completely, and we have enough other things going on that I haven't reminded her. She does continue to be interested in sewing (see above). Olivia has done some sewing with me, but needs a new project in order to keep going. She's also done some coding with Bryan and has made a couple of levels in her very own video game.

We have been trying to set up one-on-one video chats for the kids. They've all gotten to talk to someone, although Matthias is really wanting a two-year-old to talk to. Maybe Dorothea will oblige. He's jealous that his sisters get to take my phone into their room and talk to their friends. We have discovered that even for talking to grandparents or cousins, one-on-one for about 15 minutes is ideal. Having everyone try to talk at once is just a noisy, silly mess.

Yesterday as I got some flour from our basement stash of food, I saw a mouse skitter across the floor. Great. The good news is that I saw the mouse, so we were able to set a trap and move all of our not canned food upstairs. We lost two bags of chips, a small bag of beans, and the chocolate chips that I was saving for Gretchen's birthday cake. Not too bad, except for the chocolate chips. I think I have enough sitting in the pantry to still make the cake she wanted, though, and she has backup plans upon backup plans if I don't. All the bagged and boxed food is upstairs now, and as an extra precaution I packed it into plastic tubs so that if a mouse should find its way into the main house there won't be any convenient smorgasbords.

Pictures:

March 15-22

School had packets to be picked up on Monday and now we're homeschoolers, but without the benefits of field trips and play dates. I had each of the girls pick something extra to focus on while they're home, so Gretchen is learning to sew and write in cursive and Olivia is learning to sew and make video games. We're writing letters every morning for the handwriting practice and the address practice. They can access some of their computer class programs through the school website as well as a weekly music module. We have a lot of books and kindles don't need  in person interaction, so our library is well stocked. We're also watching videos by Mo Willems (of Elephant and Piggie fame) for art class. Donna sent me a link to some science activities that the kids tried on Friday and loved. Dance classes are virtual which means everyone takes ballet now if they want to. Matthias will be such a great dancer at the end of this. :) I think the most annoying part so far is gathering stuff from all the different sources and keeping it together. I don't want to have to check six different places every day for updates.

Theodore can sit up, albeit in a little nest of pillows for safety reasons. He can also roll any way he chooses, though he still doesn't choose to as often as some of his older siblings did. He mimics sounds back at people in the same range that they are made to him, which is probably normal but is something I didn't notice with the other kids. My Music Together might be showing.

Pictures:

March 1-15

Matthias recognizes one letter, X. Technically he also recognizes O, I, S, E, A, and P, but he calls them 0, 1, 2, 3, 4, and 6.

School has been canceled due to the coronavirus. Maybe we'll go back April 6, maybe we won't. As of this writing, I have yet to hear whether we're doing distance learning or just tacking extra weeks onto the end of the school year.

Theodore had a well check. 15 pounds, 14 ounces, 27 inches long. Oh, and an ear infection. I thought Theodore was the shrimpiest one of the kids, but I must have found Gretchen's wrong stats when I was first looking. Her appointment was a week earlier than Theodore's, but I think she still would have had him beat. Here is everyone at 6-ish months:
Olivia - 17 lbs, 14 oz, 28 in.
Gretchen: 15 lbs, 7 oz, 27 in.
Kaitlyn: 17 lbs, 6 oz, 26.75 in
Matthias: 17 lbs, 7 oz, 27.25 in
Theodore: 15 lbs, 14 oz, 27 in

Finding all of those stats reminded me how much I used to write. Gone are the day by day synopses of our life. At this point, we're lucky if I remember the amusing bits long enough to write them down.

Theodore tried a little bit of applesauce and was not impressed. He tried beets a few days later and liked those significantly better.

We got a new roof. The old one was leaking and, according to the two different roofing companies we had up there, installed in an unorthodox and less than ideal way. The new roof is installed correctly. We have plans to fix the water damage in the ceiling next.

Matthias's potty training is... going. We're pretty sure he had fissures for a while there, so between that and the constipation we ended up putting him on a regular dose of Miralax. The good news is that the Miralax works. The other good news is that it doesn't hurt to poop anymore. The bad news is that he associates pain with pooping specifically on the potty, so he tries not to do that. The other bad news is that he can poop without screaming now, so I don't hear him when he hides behind the curtains and fills his underwear. Our white carpet in front of the baby toys became a casualty the other day when he managed to get his pants and underwear off and then left little piles of poop all over the house. I was able to clean most of them, but unfortunately he tried to clean some up himself and mainly succeeded in grinding it into the carpet. Some things are so demoralizing they're funny.

Ode to Motherhood
Spit up and crying and pee on the floor,
Dirty old underwear back in the drawer.
Whining, complaining, and moping around
White clothes so grungy they look almost brown.
Refusing to nap till we're half out the door,
Then peeling a toddler off the kitchen floor.
I thought, just this once, we might not be late
But now there are three shoes missing their mates.
These years go so quickly, they say wistfully,
But each day sure feels like a decade to me!

Pictures:

Bonus Post: Sound Bites 48

Kaitlyn: Are you God?
Fr Joshua: No. But I'm a friend of God.
Kaitlyn: Can you turn me into a unicorn?

Gretchen: Mom, I just finished a book and the end was so funny. Want to hear the funny part?
Me: Sure.
Gretchen: *proceeds to tell me the entire unabridged story*

Kaitlyn: Mom, I was wrong. You are nice sometimes.

Matthias: ABCDHIGHIJKNOPURSPUZdoubleSPUZ

Kaitlyn: The cats and hill went up the hill and it's in all a flutter. Jack fell down and broke his crown and Jill came tumbling after. The cats fought and they fit and they had seven kittens, instead of two cats there weren't any.
(This contains pieces of Jack and Jill, Two Cats of Kilkenny, As I Was Going to St Ives, and A Peanut Sat on a Railroad Track)

Discussing the ten commandments.
Me: Have you killed anybody?
Gretchen: No! I don't even have a sword!

Bryan: Kaitlyn, your presence near people who are doing things always causes sadness.

Gretchen: I am going to drink a lot of milk so that I can be strong. And when I grow up I will fly into space and lift the world up on my pinkie.

Me: When's your birthday?
Matthias: July.
Me: July what?
Matthias: Blue birthday.
Me: Eleventh.
Matthias: Blue birthday.
Me: July eleventh.
Matthias: I love you, too.

Gretchen: *long rambling story about poop*
Gretchen: And then he drew a B-U-T. I had to spell it because I didn't want to say a potty word. So I just spelled B-U-T.
Gretchen: *continues rambling story about poop*

February 16-March 1

Ohio has decided that Thursday school in February is ridiculous. The girls only went to school one Thursday this month, and even that was a close call.

Kaitlyn had a doctor's appointment a couple of weeks ago because her tonsils are swollen and she can't hear out of one ear. They didn't find anything except a lot of wax and since she reports zero pain, they said to just keep an eye on her to see if she improves. Thus far she has not. We did get her weight, though, so we know that she's 41 pounds.

A Matthias thing that I think I have not mentioned yet: He likes to play CDs and dance to the songs. He will put a CD in the CD player, run into the empty space in front of the back door, and wait for his jam to come on. For a long time, his favorite song was the teacher track for a Music Together song called Hey Ya Na. What is hilarious to me is that this particular track is very simplistic. Three minutes of a steady drum beat with jingle bells. No variation in rhythm, no words or music. Matthias turns that on and happily bounces to the drum and bells for three minutes.

Theodore is six months old. He has two teeth, rolls front to back, and is beginning to sit up. He is a worse sleeper than I would like, so we've been working on sleep training and night weaning. His newest talent is grabbing a toy and hitting himself in the face with it. He hits his face on the first try 90% of the time.

Pictures:

January 12-February 16

Favorite Foods:

Olivia

1. Macaroni and Cheese

2. Hamburgers

3. Pizza

4. Mexican Chicken

5. Chalupas

6. Enchiladas

Gretchen:

1. All kinds of chicken.

Kaitlyn:
1. Cereal
2. Hamburgers
3. Macaroni and Cheese
4. Salad
5. Cake

Adult ambitions:

Olivia:

1. Librarian

2. Author

Gretchen:

1. Illustrator

2. Pop Star

3. Mom

4. Teacher

5. Fashion Designer

6. Chef

Kaitlyn:
1. Do you mean for a name? I was thinking of Rosa. But Ryan's little sister is named Rosa. I could change my name to Rose. But my last name will still be Barhorst.
2. I want to bake.
3. And brush my hair.
4. And brush my teeth with yucky toothpaste.
5. And eat yucky food. Because you are a grown up and you like yucky food, so I will, too.
6. And I'm going to buy presents for my kids.

I am guessing that there are approximately 45 days in a school quarter. The girls just got their second quarter report cards and they were tardy 17 times. Those are just the days they were late enough to need slips. I am confident that the remaining days fall mostly in the nebulous "late for drop off but technically before the tardy bell" time. We're that family. :(

We've been working on remembering that no means no, because consent is important, even for playing a chasing game around the house. Our discussions are meant to allow the kids to realize that their words have meaning and that they should not feel like they have to go along with a situation that makes them uncomfortable. I also want them to learn to respect the "no" of others. It's hit and miss, except with Kaitlyn. With Kaitlyn, it's all miss. She is not using "stop" or "no" to step away from things she doesn't want to do. For Kaitlyn, the phrase "no means no" grants her PHENOMENAL COSMIC POWER and now everyone has to do things exactly how she wants or else she will shriek "no" at them.

Recent doctor visits:
Theodore (4 months) -- 14 lbs, 8 oz, 25.25 inches long
Olivia (8 and a half) -- 55.5 lbs, 52 inches tall

Kaitlyn and Matthias have a word, uggah, that they use to indicate that they ARE obeying, but with maximum reluctance because they have been unfairly coerced by tyrannical parents. It started as ugh, I believe, but is now a full two syllables and is quite versatile in that you can say it both quietly under your breath and more dramatically, depending on what reaction you're hoping for and what level of subversiveness you're trying to convey.

Kara and Gwen came to visit for most of a week  in mid January while Jacob was attending a conference in Fort Wayne. Donna came as well on her way home from Cleveland. And Justine brought her kids so that she could see Kara, Gwen, and Donna. And then Zach came down and Jacob stayed with us one night as he retrieved his family... It was a full house. :) Poor Gwen was a little overwhelmed by all of the extra children, but she survived.

I abandoned my family (except for Theodore) and flew to Austin at the end of January. Two of my college roommates, Danielle and Amanda, live in Austin now, so Robin and I decided that we could each make the trip and have a reunion. This is the first time the four of us have been together since May of 2008. It was a fun time and we are already talking about making it a more frequent thing. Perhaps every January, so that those of us from colder climates can enjoy the Texas winter for a few days. :)

Theo cut his first tooth just after we returned from Austin. Bottom left is in, and bottom right looks like it's not far behind.

Matthias is potty trained. He wears undies all day every day and I don't worry about him having accidents when we're out and about. He is reluctant to poop in the potty, so I generally have to pay attention and manhandle him into the bathroom at the appropriate time, but other than that he's very reliable. And, actually, he's reluctant to poop, period, so it's not hard to catch him because he puts a lot of effort into holding it in. I don't worry about that when we're out and about, either, because his sphincter has thus far been reliably strong and/or stubborn.

Theodore has discovered things. He knows that there are hands that wave around in front of him and catches them regularly. He does have trouble letting go, so he often looks quite pious. He's also noticed that there tend to be animal faces on the ends of his legs, so he's been practicing catching those and consequently gets his leg stuck up in his pajamas on a regular basis. His arch provides entertainment in that he is aware that he can knock it down... somehow. When he is placed on the mat he flails all of his limbs wildly until the arch falls down on his face. Then he chews on the animals. To the victor go the snacks. Limb flailing is also effective in the bathtub, so cleaning time has become splashier. He is content to be stored in his flying saucer and has learned to turn it around so that he can look at all the different toys. Sometimes he can make them do things. Other times he just stares.

In other Theo news, he can roll front to back, but often chooses not to. You just never know when the surface you're laying on is a nice comfy bed and when it's a hardwood floor that will bump your head. Theodore can not, as of this writing, roll back to front. I blame this on his faulty technique. He grabs the knees of his sleepers, pulls his legs up towards his stomach, and rolls onto his side before getting stuck. He appears to care not a whit that generations of babies have accomplished rolling by chewing on their hands while looking over their shoulders at things above their heads. No, Theodore is forging a new rolling path, and the knee-grabbing crunch is the core of his revolutionary philosophy.

I have been practicing more (yay!), aided by the fact that somehow I tricked Theodore into associating viola music with calm. For a few weeks I had been practicing nearly every day right after his first nap while he did tummy time nearby. He would generally be content to listen for twenty minutes or half an hour before getting antsy. Then one night he was fussy but not sleeping, so I plopped him down on his belly and got out my viola. Instant calm. I did it again the next night, and again he was calm. Another day he gave up on waiting for me to finish and just took his nap while I practiced. I was worried that he would lose this association while we were in Austin, so I had my phone play cello suites during his nap if he was having trouble falling asleep. Danielle laughed at my cultured baby who preferred classical music playing quietly in the background while he slept. Now whenever Theo is generally crabby but won't sleep, I try to bring him into my room and practice while he listens. When he's had enough (15-20 minutes later), I'll try his nap or bedtime again and it works!

Pictures:

Bonus Post: Sound Bites 47

Me: You smell good. Why do you smell so good?
Matthias: Because I'm wearing pants.

Me: Did you have a good nap?
Matthias: Yes. I got out of my room and I put my blanket in my bed and an elephant was chasing me!

Gretchen: I can see my nose. Only if I close one eye. It's just a talent I have.

Kaitlyn: You're making my life worser which is making me meaner.

Matthias: You say juice, I'll say monkey. Ready?
Bryan: Juice.
Matthias: Monkey. Jinx!
Bryan: Hey! Do that again.
Matthias: Okay. You say juice, I'll say Massachusetts. Ready?
Bryan: Juice. *at the same time as Matthias* Massachusetts.
Matthias: Monkey. Jinx!

Matthias: Mom, I'll say Daddy, you say Mommy.
Me: Daddy.
Matthias: ...
Me: Oh, Mommy!
Matthias: Jinx!

Me: Girls, it's time to settle down and go to sleep.
Kaitlyn: Well, I guess she is a bad mom.
Olivia: How dare you?!
Gretchen: She is the best mom I ever had.
Kaitlyn: I just like Rudy's mom. And Juliana's mom and Irene's mom. ...And our mom.

Murry: Do you guys ever buy from the Schwanns man?
Bryan: Hah. The most pre-made thing we have at our house is flour and that's only because we don't grind our own wheat anymore.

Me: I'm so bad at dusting.
Bryan: Can you be bad at something you've never done before?

Kaitlyn: Mommy, since you're married, you're a queen! So you're the queen and daddy's the king.
Matthias: AND daddy's a ghost.

Gretchen: Once you start going to school, you don't actually like it.

Kaitlyn, reading The Very Hungry Caterpillar: ...It ate so much food. And then it was a fatty pants! And it made gurgling sounds. Then it turned into a butterfly!

Olivia watches a superhero show with two heros -- Ladybug and Cat New-ah. (Cat Noir)

Kaitlyn was "reading" the Bible (a hymnal, actually) to me: God was working harder and harder to not be lonely. And it was good. But sometimes people grow older. And when they grow into a very old lady, they die. Then somebody takes them to heaven and God makes them alive again and they will never die again. And they live happily ever after. Isn't that so sweet of God?

December 29-January 12

I already remembered some things I forgot to write about in my last post of 2019.

Bryan and I both had birthdays. We're 33, hooray for us.

A snow day happened. There was a two hour delay one Monday, and then a full snow day on Tuesday. There was much excitement, and even some playing in the snow. It did make scheduling a little inconvenient since the Christmas program that was scheduled for Tuesday night got bumped to Wednesday and that was the same day as the dance dress rehearsal. Gretchen got to perform in the lunchtime program, but not the evening one.

We took the kids to see the lights at the Toledo Zoo on December 20. Since it was cold and dark, the animals weren't much in evidence (we did see some seals in the water), but the whole zoo was festooned in sparkly Christmas lights and everyone was very excited to see the "decorations Christmas." That's Matthias's phrase. He sounds a little European putting his noun first. We combined the lights trip with a visit to Bryan's cousin and her family, staying overnight in Toledo so that the kids could play and the adults could get some euchre in.

Everyone here had various levels of a cold the whole vacation. Only three people actually threw up (Matthias on the 24th, but we're pretty sure that was mostly poor management of snot drainage, Kaitlyn on the 26th, and Walter on the 30th), but everyone was congested and coughing and germy. Justine and I enforced more frequent hand washing, did extra laundry, and sprayed disinfectant liberally after kids went to bed. Jacque and her family, to their credit, came anyway. :)

The Smiths arrived on December 31. We had a great time watching the cousins interact and playing games after the kids went to bed. They stayed one day longer than the Bossards so that they could attend the annual Messiah party (fun, as usual) and then we played a game the next day before they finally had to hit the road.

Oh! We made ice cream! I was looking up where to buy peppermint ice cream (nowhere, it turns out, if you wait until after Christmas) and stumbled across a recipe instead. I have an ice cream maker, so we bought heavy cream and half and half to try it out. Well, my ice cream maker is two single serving bowls and a small paddle. And one of the bowls might be missing most of its inner liquid that keeps the walls cold after you take it out of the freezer. So I made one bowl of ice cream before it all fell apart. Then Justine did some more research and we decided we could do it in 9x13 pans using an immersion blender. It was not available the night we originally wanted it, but we did have some delicious peppermint ice cream with hot fudge the following night. :)

School started again on the 6th. Morning comes too early these days, although I'm suffering more than the girls are right now since the Bossard kids run on an earlier time zone than the rest of this side of the country. All of the cousins were up early that second week of Christmas vacation, but I was able to sleep in a little, sequestered as I was behind a closed door on the other side of the house. Now it's back to early mornings again and I'm sad to have to adjust.

The girls have two new word "games" they like to play. One is the chant "I say ___, you say ___," except their words don't necessarily make sense together. Sometimes they're just two parts of one single syllable word. The other thing they've recently discovered is jinx. You can see how these two discoveries might work well together. The best part by far is that Matthias has picked up on what they're doing, but with zero understanding of the process. He will look around the room for inspiration, pick two random objects, and say, "Mom, you say [truck], I'll say [ball]." Dutifully following the script, I will say truck, he will say ball, and then he'll immediately yell "JINX!" This goes on for as long as the other participant will allow it.

The weather has been unseasonably warm around here recently. Christmas was probably warmer than Easter in 2019. At 59 degrees, it was definitely warmer than when we went to Chicago for Julian's baptism on May 1. It stayed in the high 40s and low 50s for a bit, dropped down to high 20s for two days, and then was back up in the 50s. We've also had a lot of rain. One of these days Ohio is going to remember it's winter and we're going to have a whole lot of ice as the temperature plummets overnight.

Theo is coordinated enough to make everything more difficult than it needs to be. He lifts his bum off the table to scoot with his legs during diaper changes. He grabs the insides of his sleeves when getting dressed. He gets his arms tangled in his car seat straps as soon as I unbuckle him. He grabs my shirt or skirt fabric (whatever is closest at the time), shoves it in his mouth, and, more often than not, spits up on it. The nuisance is real.

Bryan makes Supermario Maker 2 levels on the Nintendo Switch and uploads some of them for other people to play. Normally you just give the level code out to your friends and they try your levels when they get a chance. Or you sit them down on your couch and they play right there. But. There are also popular people who play levels for a living, streaming videos of themselves playing (and generally winning, but sometimes losing, and always with commentary). Nintendo facilitates this by allowing you to try to beat a random string of similarly difficult levels with a limited number of lives. On Tuesday, one of Bryan's levels showed up in the super expert (that's very difficult, meaning it has a low clear percentage) random string that was played by a popular youtube streamer AND someone Bryan knows saw it, recognized it as his, and told him about it. The odds against this happening are huge. Anyway, if you're interested, here's the video. Bryan's level starts just after the 7 minute mark.

Pictures: